TreyArch

When Infinity Ward lost two of its founders, Jason West and Frank Zampella, I wondered how that studio would fair. The developer works in tandem with Treyarch on the Call of Duty series. One studio releases an entry while the other works on theirs in a back-and-forth schedule that’s produce a game every year like clockwork. With that loss of leadership, who would enter to fill that void? Better yet, with that messy disruption and the numerous departures, how could Infinity Ward ship its latest game in time?

ECHOES OF WORLD WAR II: At the E3 Activision booth, I saw the same demo that the company showed at the Microsoft news conference. In Hunter Killer, a team of special forces members hijack a Russian submarine and use its missiles to retaliate against the Kremlin. The setup screams Hollywood blockbuster, and in a way, it echoes back to the series’ origins in World War II.

During the special forces escape, they’ll see battleships firing at each other and aircraft carriers slowly sinking. Meanwhile, skyscrapers along the New York waterfront will be set on fire. Infinity Ward and Sledgehammer games even managed to get the Freedom Tower in the distance despite the building not being completed yet.

At the Nintendo Media Summit, I had a chance to play the Wii version of the game. (There was no Modern Warfare for the Wii if you were wondering.) I was battling the Japanese on Okinawa with a little help from Josh Olin, TreyArch community manager.

We were playing the squad mate mode, where a second player can jump in and help the single-player in a campaign. For the first player, it’s business as usual. They move around and shoot enemies like in any first-person shooter. They torch holes with the weapon du jour, a flame thrower, and throw satchels of explosives to destroy bunkers.

On the other hand, the second-player experience is more of a rail shooter. The second person is another cursor on the first-player’s screen, blasting troopers that the lead guy may have missed. Of course, the second player still has to abide by the rules of the game, meaning both of them have to watch their ammo.

The second player is reliant on the first to grab ammo. It’s helpful to have a different gun on hand so that both players don’t steal each other’s ammunition. It’s also smart to have two complementary weapons so that players can tackle any unexpected situations.